Des Moines Register at 175: Pursuing rigorous reporting amid technological, societal change

If you’ve ever complained that the Des Moines Register is nothing more than a blatant mouthpiece of the Democratic establishment, you’re partially correct — if we’re talking 175 years ago.

A gaggle of fledgling partisan newspapers in the mid-1800s planted roots for what in the 20 ^th century would mature into the Register, the state’s dominant news source. The Iowa Star, a Democratic weekly, was established at Second and Vine streets near the riverbank in what was then Fort Des Moines and was first published on July 26, 1849. Much of its premiere issue was given over to reporting on its party’s recent state convention in Iowa City and complaining about “rabid Whig partisans.”

The first issue of the Star also praised the growth of its community as “a flourishing town containing eight or more stores, two well-kept hotels, 12 or 15 lawyers, five or six doctors, and a fair supply of mechanics.”

New owners, purchases and consolidations would follow. Most notably, the influential Cowles family — today’s Register newsroom at Capital Square overlooks Cowles Commons — took ownership in 1903. The evening Tribune, focusing more narrowly on coverage of the capital city rather than the entire state, was purchased in 1908.

Under publisher Gardner Cowles Sr., a fiscal conservative, and editor Harvey Ingham, a progressive optimist with an expansive mind, the generally centrist tone of the Register laid the foundations of a more independent news source that above all was devoted to holding power to account.

In a 1977 book “Things Don’t Just Happen,” a biography of the seminal publisher-editor duo of Register journalism, legendary reporter and Iowa historian George Mills reflected on what had become a post-war industry norm: Newsrooms ideally should function as objective watchdogs for their local communities.

“The Cowles-Ingham effort to separate editorial opinion from news coverage was a continuing goal,” Mills wrote. “It was not always achieved, of course. … The goal was, and is, to avoid ‘slanting’ and to present a news subject in as full, clear and honest a light as reporters and editors can summon up. That they sometimes fail is no surprise; that they succeed in achieving true, balanced coverage as often as they do is.”

The fair supply of mechanics and other residents of the Iowa Star’s flourishing town in 1849 has morphed into a still-fast-growing metro area of 737,000 people, a hub of financial services, state government, health care and advanced manufacturing rooted in an agribusiness landscape that tends to be summed up by Iowa's 154,000 farmers and vast population of 124 million farm animals .

As the Register celebrates its 175th anniversary, it, too, has continued to evolve — sometimes dramatically, from the telegraph to TikTok — to suit changing technology and society while always striving to faithfully report and analyze the events of the day.

A history of bold reporting, responsibility to readers and innovation

The Register has been a “constant presence in newspapers in Iowa in terms of leadership,” said Brian Cooper, who spent 30 years as editor of an even older title, the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald (founded in 1836). Cooper, who retired in 2019, has written a history of Iowa newspapers from the perspective of the Iowa Newspaper Association. His book, “On the Record,” is due to be published next year. Cooper’s research reaffirmed the pervasiveness of unapologetically partisan publishers throughout Iowa and our early republic —“political organs that also carried local news.”

But valid local news in the 20th century asserted itself as the core product. The Register was among those typifying how a newspaper could combine bold reporting with responsibility to readers generally rather than to a specific political party or power center. A good newspaper not only reflected its community but challenged residents to work together for a better and more equitable future.

The Register distinguished itself with early humanitarian stances on civil rights, child welfare and other issues. It went on to report from around the globe — including interviewing Iowa troops on the battlefront — as well as from all 99 counties.

The “Good Roads” movement of the 1920s offered an example of the Register as a leader in benevolent capitalism: Not only was it in the public interest for the Register to encourage statewide road paving for all farmers and motorists routinely stuck in muddy lanes, it was smart business to smooth the way for newspaper circulation and the expansion of its advertising footprint.

But even decades ago, the Register didn't confine itself to the printed page or traditional news articles.

The Register joined the airwaves — Cowles purchased his first radio station in 1922 — and the airways — the Register in 1928 became the first newspaper in the nation to own and operate its own full-time aircraft, the Good News (named in a reader contest).

George Gallup, who grew up in Jefferson and was educated at the University of Iowa, went on to establish his influential Gallup Poll in 1935. That inspired the Register’s Iowa Poll — the oldest continuously operated statewide poll in the nation, launched in 1943 — to scientifically capture the authentic collective voice of Iowans long before we all got sick of each other incessantly spouting off on social media. The Iowa Poll continues to track elections and political issues but also famously has indulged in household curiosities such as residents’ favorite vegetables. (Iowans were shocked in 1979 when lettuce beat both corn and green beans, with 99% approval compared to 97%.)

Splashy photography and culture magazine Look was launched in 1937 as a competitor to Life and grew to more than 7 million in circulation by the 1960s. Among its early staff photographers in New York was a young Stanley Kubrick, who quit in 1951 after directing his first motion picture.

This was the century of iconic still images commanding front pages in stark black and white. Camera film was flown on the Good News back to Des Moines to be developed for the morning Register. The same year Look was born, an 804-foot-long airship filled with hydrogen burst into flames and crashed in New Jersey. The Hindenburg disaster was emblazoned on the front page in Des Moines and scores of other cities worldwide. (FYI, Gen Z: The image today is most famous as the cover art for classic rock band Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut album.)

The Register also innovated with still images in the form of a daily front-page editorial cartoon. Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling, who joined the Register in 1906, won two Pulitzers, worked in the FDR administration, and became one of the nation’s most celebrated environmentalists before his final cartoon was published posthumously in 1962. (The national wildlife refuge named in his honor on Sanibel Island in Florida is worth a visit.)

Two years after the Federal Communications Commission approved color TV, the Register launched its own TV station in 1955. KRNT (short for “Register and Tribute”) later was renamed KCCI, after “Cowles Communications Inc.” Cowles sold KCCI in 1984.

The Cowles Media Co. in its 20th century heyday was based in the Twin Cities, where it also owned the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and an array of other newspapers, magazines and radio and TV stations.

Shaping world affairs with the power of words

Yet the nuclear reactor at the heart of any news operation remains not any flashy format or business portfolio but the simple power of urgent events and compelling ideas clearly expressed. So often, mere words still do the best job of carrying a good story far and wide.

The elegant words of what arguably rates as the Register’s most famous editorial were written in 1955 by Lauren Soth. As the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated, Soth invited Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to send a delegation to Iowa in a bid of barnyard diplomacy.

“We have no diplomatic authority of any kind, but we hereby extend an invitation to any delegation Khrushchev wants to select to come to Iowa to get the lowdown on raising high quality cattle, hogs, sheep and chickens,” Soth wrote. “We promise to hide none of our ‘secrets.’ We will take the visiting delegation to Iowa's great agricultural experiment station at Ames, to some of the leading farmers of Iowa, to our livestock breeders, soil conservation experts and seed companies. Let the Russians see how we do it. … We ask nothing in return. We figure that more knowledge about the means to a good life in Russia can only benefit the world and us. It might even shake the Soviet leaders in their conviction that the United States wants war; it might even persuade them that there is a happier future in developing a high level of living than in this paralyzing race for more and more armaments.”

The editorial prompted farm exchanges between the two nations and eventually led to Khrushchev visiting the Roswell Garst farm near Coon Rapids in 1959.

I linger on this moment in the middle of the Register’s 175-year timeline to emphasize two key points:

No authority : Soth saw fit to remind readers he lacked any official office or status to extend such an invitation. That’s because as a journalist his authority flowed from the Constitution — writing as a member of the only private industry singled out in our nation’s founding document. Building on that fundamental right, his newsroom over time had earned trust with Iowans. This is the magic formula of press freedom and a rare balance: an unshakable right to publish that’s central to our democracy combined with a fragile relationship with the public that must be renewed each day, byline by byline.

Nothing in return : Soth’s words were more credible as a disinterested party. He wasn’t angling for votes, a business deal or any other payoff (beyond the basic benefit of dependable and powerful journalism attracting a larger audience for his work).

Implicit in Soth’s words was the honor he felt serving as a responsible steward of the will and welfare of all Iowans. At the right moment, a strong institution in local news can shape world affairs.

Touchstone of a common news source gives way to internet disruption

The news biz has gotten only wilder since Khrushchev shucked Iowa corn.

The front page of the Register on July 21, 1969, proclaimed: “MAN WALKS ON MOON!” (When writing your next email, consider how sparingly exclamation marks have been used to juice Register front-page headlines. Less is more.)

Another epic journey, the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI), was founded in 1973. In hindsight it was a diversification of the newsroom revenue stream into culture and entertainment events that was ahead of its time.

RAGBRAI illustrates another key feature of strong news institutions of the last 175 years: They wove themselves into the fabric of their communities in ways far beyond traditional news.

Michael Gartner, a pivotal Register editor and president of the 1970s and ‘80s (who later owned the Iowa Cubs), wrote in 2013 in Cityview: “In those days, the 1950s, the days before computers and the Internet and fax machines and Xeroxes, the sports department printed the scores of every high school game in the state, and it hired cadres of kids to take those scores over the phones every Friday night — and, on Saturdays, to answer the special line, CH(erry)3-2161, to give out scores of the college games to the hundreds of people, probably thousands, who would call in.”

Kids relayed sports scores. More kids pedaled and trudged the streets as newspaper carriers — often their first real job, a remembrance that was one of the most common anecdotes I heard from boomer and Gen X Iowans from all walks of life in 24 years of interviewing people for the Register.

I first stepped into the Register newsroom in 1994, a dozen years after the closure of the afternoon Tribune (1982) and nine years after Gannett purchased the Register (1985). I felt the reassuring rumble of the presses in the basement of 715 Locust before a new printing facility took over on March 13, 2000, south of the airport.

I got a taste of an earlier era when I was among scores of staffers from all departments who fanned out throughout the capital city to hawk an afternoon extra edition chronicling the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

In 2013, The Register moved to its current home at Capital Square. When I visit the dimly lit barroom of Hello, Marjorie, inside the Register’s former lobby at 715 Locust, I can’t help but dwell on the progression: A room now catering to cashless transactions for craft cocktails once was the commercial epicenter for Iowans who streamed into the building with their nickels and dimes to place newspaper classified ads.

Americans in local communities once consulted the same sets of birth announcements, obituaries, entertainment listings — common sets of facts of every kind in daily life, not only for politics and controversy.

So many of these fundamental connections — a broader and more democratized investment in local news sources— have been stripped away by the unrelenting evolution of technology and business.

The era of the Iowa Star was a fight among political factions involving a press that was getting used to its cheaper, more efficient printing to reach the masses. Eventually it became more lucrative for publishers to speak to all the residents in a given metro — of all political persuasions — as a geographically distinct and captive advertising audience.

Then social media and big tech swept in to disrupt curated newspaper front pages with messy mobile feeds — a digital frontier where, for many outlets, aggregating eyeballs along political persuasions and special interests is back in fashion. And in 2024, rapidly evolving artificial intelligence and ever more sophisticated deep fakes threaten to further complicate sorting fact from fiction and undermine trust in legitimate reporting.

What to keep? Rigorous pursuit of common facts in the community's interest

Echoing editorial writer Soth, I should point out that I feel no real authority to pontificate on the accumulated meaning of 175 years of Register history, although my former role as Iowa columnist allowed me just these sorts of flights of fancy. I left the newsroom in 2018 as one of thousands of journalists through the decades who collectively built trust with Iowans. When I was approached to write this essay, I agreed with some trepidation.

I don’t want to be misunderstood as trying to enshrine a gauzy false sense of a perfect journalism past that in reality never existed. You could produce a series outlining the failings of journalism at different points in history — including in terms of justice for Indigenous Iowans, Black Iowans, LGTBQ+ Iowans and many other communities.

What I do want to enshrine is the worth of a strong newsroom that prioritizes a rigorous and robust process to produce journalism in pursuit of common facts in the community’s interest. And that's something to carry forward with pride: How the mechanics of journalism has operated on the best days throughout the last 175 years in downtown Des Moines.

“Newspapers may have a point of view, but they’ve always had to work in the community interest,” said Leo Landis, state curator for the State Historical Society of Iowa. They struck a balance by “celebrating our successes but also exposing our faults.”

The need for professional and rigorous news coverage becomes painfully apparent in the throes of an emergency —including the floods, fires, tornadoes and other natural disasters that all too often ravage communities. Your favorite Facebook group or lone enthusiast tweeting on X doesn’t provide the same reliable service to present their subjects in as full, clear and honest a light.

The Register has won 17 Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 2018 for a series of editorials that, in the words of the Pulitzer board, examined "in a clear, indignant voice, free of cliché or sentimentality, the damaging consequences for poor Iowa residents of privatizing the state’s administration of Medicaid."

As a newsroom alum I was proud in March 2021 to watch the livestream of Editor Carol Hunter’s firm testimony in the trial of a Register reporter who had been pepper-sprayed and arrested while doing her job during a Black Lives Matter protest in Des Moines the previous year. The jury acquitted the reporter of all charges in a case that became a rallying cry for press freedom.

Meanwhile, Register offshoots such as RAGBRAI still thrive. The Des Moines Storytellers Project regularly fills Hoyt Sherman Place theater.

One hundred seventy-five years in the life of any newsroom is a ramshackle gallery of messy, glorious, invigorating, infuriating, prophetic, perceptive, incomplete, misconstrued, colorful, prosaic, utilitarian, cathartic, consoling, vexing, impertinent, profound, frivolous, and — ultimately — absolutely necessary rough drafts of history.

One thing that hasn’t changed in 175 years: That news sources sometimes fail to live up to their First Amendment mandate and the earned trust of their local communities is no surprise. That they succeed as often as they do is.

Kyle Munson, an Iowa native and Central College graduate, was a Des Moines Register writer and editor for 24 years, from 1994 to 2018, and served as the Iowa columnist for his last eight years. He’s now a content strategist in the financial services industry and also serves as chair of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation. The opinions expressed are his own. He can be contacted at kyleleemunson@gmail.com .

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines Register at 175: Pursuing rigorous reporting amid technological, societal change